Okay, Okay, It has been a while since I have posted, but please forgive me, it gets really busy around here with the 7 kids! I have been trying to get my business off the ground, and just running this household is a 24hr job!

Anyway, the focus of this post is my youngest son, Justice. His hair is loced and has been for just about a year now too. His locs were started from just about an inch of hair, and it has been interesting to see the transition of his hair.

Here is a pic of his hair in the beginning

The biggest obstacle has been keeping his hair free of lint and debris, because as you can imagine, he is a VERY active boy! I used to spend a lot of time trying to keep his locs neat and in order, but I realized pretty quickly that I just needed to let him go and to not worry too much about it. I found that simple water, a bit of honey if needed, and a lot of ‘leavin it alone’, has done wonders in his growth process. Now that they are formed, I am just latching once every 4-5 months, in fact, this is my MO for every one in the house that has mature locs, myself included.

I am amazed at his growth over the last year! You guys tell me what you think!

Today my focus is my stepson Raheem. He made the decision to grow his hair out all on his own about 3 years ago. He came to us one day out of the blue and announced that he wanted to let his hair grow.

At the time, I was not even loced, but I braided and cornrowed, so it was not a problem, but a surprise from such a young boy. He was only 11 when he made the announcement. So we did.

It was a labour of love and has a thick ( and I mean THICK!) mane of hair that is about 6-7 inches in length.

We decided about 3 months ago to loc his hair…he is playing basketball and is very active with school so he was looking for something that is a little more low maintenance. At 14 and in his first year of High School, I suspect that he was looking for a way to stand out to the ‘ladies’ as well!

They are coming along nicely, it took me about 10 hrs to put them in his hair because of the thickness and length. Of course they are in the baby dred stage, so they are fussy and messy, but he manages well by wearing a headband to keep them in place.

His hair is of a soft texture as well ( like his father’s) so I started his with latching. He has worn his hair in twists and while they did stay in his hair, I found that latching the twists from tip to root added the traction that we needed to keep its structure. It is coming along nicely for sure!

Just as something completely off topic, I had a client today that wanted strand by strand extensions- I am going to post my handiwork! I have recently expanded my business to include this service and I am hoping it leads to great success! Locing is my first love though!

I am trying to post more often, because I realize that I have a lot of hair to do and there is a lot that I actually can say! Plus the kids are getting more and more interested in the blog, hence more willing subjects!

My stepson Qadry is the subject today. I have been going through some pictures, and man- how is is grown! We have all been living together since he was nine and I had to look back and smile- I see the man that he is becoming.

Qadry is a quiet child-very introspective, but he has a smile that can light up a room. As he is getting older, sometimes it is hard to get out the smile….he’s got to be chill…..lol!

He is the epitomy an old West Indian saying “Still rivers run deep” . He doesn’t say very much, but we know there is a lot going on in there!

He has a tighter coil pattern (more like mine) than his father or his brothers so it has been a longer journey for him to see the results of his hair growth.

It is more of a challenge to get him to take care of his hair but that is because he is only 12, but I will say that he is very dedicated to the process and wants to be able to wear cornrows. We are almost there. In fact, we were there a few weeks back, and in his careful grooming of his hair, he unfortunately tried to trim the cornrows…..and cut out spots in his head- some right down to the scalp.

It is a little set back, but his hair is growing out again and we are just putting in comb coils and twists until we get the his hair to a braidable length all the way round again.

He made the decision to grow out his hair, I guess because he was watching us all start to do so. He also has a love affair with different braid styles and wanted to try them too. He does not want to loc his hair yet, and we are fine with that. We can express the natural beauty of our hair in so many different ways, and I it gives me great pleasure to cornrow too. You will start to see the different styles coming soon because I also cornrow my oldest stepson’s hair Akeem. He too has just been growing out his hair and it is at a great braid length. I am starting to get the pics together…More to come I promise! I still have all the kids to introduce to you all.

Last night, I did put some two strand twists in his hair after a wash and condition. I am stepping up my game in maintenance, it is on going battle against the harsh Canadian winter to keep our hair moisturized.

His hair and scalp were very dry so we washed and deep conditioned. Then I twisted it while wet and added a mix of homemade pomade that I use. I try to make all our haircare products, I find that that more natural the products, the better for our hair results for our hair! I use pure shea butter, coconut oil, olive oil and an essential oil for scent and rub it into his scalp.

I also use this mix as a overall cream for my skin.

It is a funny thing because I use different moisturizers depending on whose hair I am doing. The pomade seems to work best in loose hair and sparingly on dreads, because of the shea butter causing buildup….not something we want!

Today my star is my youngest daughter, Brianna. We started her locs with two strand twists in October 2006, right before the Canadian thanksgiving.

My decision to loc my daughter’s hair was considered a controversial one, especially with the family. After all, I could braid and cornrow, her hair was healthy and strong-what in the world would make me want to put her hair into a style that she won’t be able to remove? I got a lot of comments that her hair would be dirty, not “neat” in the conventional sense, and that she would be teased at school. I decided to loc it anyway.

It was important to me for her to appreciate her hair and allow her to see the magic that is her hair texture, and allow it grow out to its full glory.

I myself at that point had been loced for about a year and I knew that we were not going to be doing anything ‘crazy’ to her hair. I was simply going to allow it to grow. In it’s own way.

She liked my hair and had wanted to have her hair look ‘like Mommy’. (They call her my ‘mini me’ because we have very much the same build, and now, hair!)

Her hair is an expression of herself. I hope that as she grows and her hair adds length she will see that it was possible for it to swing down her back in a way that is true to her- and all hers! I want her to hold her head proudly and understand that her coily locs are beautiful in its natural form. It does not need to altered to suit a form of beauty that is truly not representative of herself, but a western standard is not realistic to who we are as black women.

Here is her hair before we loced-

This is it as of right now-we took this pics after school today….

Her locs are a little over a year old and are now completely formed and I just pretty much let them do their thing. I latch her hair every 3 months or so, I keep after her to wear a headtie to bed – (actually a hair bonnet of sorts made from an old children’s slip we had). This is probably the most important thing because with children and locs- lint and dirt is the biggest issue- plus we have a dog so everything is attracted to the hair. I battle buildup and lint balls all the time…..FRUSTRATION!!!! She is pretty good with it and trust me- it it worse with her little brother Justice…. but that is another blog post!

Here it is just before Christmas freshly latched:

I am noticing that it seems to be growing pretty quickly now- the stage in which the strands of hair constrict on each other as they interwined seems to passed so each loc is lengthening….this is making her happy! She started with maybe 4 inches of hair- through the constriction process the hair went to about 3 inches- and now her locs are about 5 inches long. She loves her hair and we use lots of pony tails, braids and/or beads to give her different looks. Locing her hair has not caused any difference and her hair is healthy.

Okay- I took some more pics today of the boys so I am going to post one just so you can see the family- they are all being introduced slowly, but they are all going to be featured soon too…..!

These are my men……

Now the youngest-who is front and center actually got his hair done today, I put it in two strand twists, I promise to get a pic of it tomorrow’s because it was late when we finished so i rushed him off to bed without the pics..so this is pre -hairstyle shot. They are pretty handsome even if I do say so myself, LOL! I will have more for you tomorrow!

Happy new year everyone! It has been a few weeks, but with this busy holiday season, the seven kids and a bout of the flu, I unfortunately was taken out of commission for a little while! Nonetheless, I have some new pics and new subjects for you to check out. This is my hubby Hassan, who made the decision to loc his hair early in the month of Dec. I am absolutely amazed at how his hair has taken to the process of locing. He has a looser curl pattern than mine, so I thought that it would be more difficult to form the helix, but his hair has taken beautifully. It does unravel, and I had to restart him once, ( he washed his hair AND used conditioner…..) but I just restarted it using a latch technique versus the two strand twists that I originally applied. Once we got past this hurdle….all has well and his hair is responding by leaps and bounds!

Here are some pics, starting with the before shots:

This was him before the process began…very “Corporate”. Then he decided that he should be judged on his merit, not his hairstyle. Fast forward to Dec 07:

This was his hair after the wash and condition fiaso….enough said.

This was after it was latched the next round…

A close up of how they are looking now….

And this is his hair as of today Jan 5th. It is constricting on itself so it looks thinner…..

While this blog is about the entire family, I thought I would start with my own lock journey. I have mentioned before that I have been loced for 2 years, (Dec 4th 2005 to be exact!) and I have loved the entire experience. It truly has been magical and enlightening to stop being a slave to weaves. I was a certified weave junkie. My favorite saying used to be..”It is all my hair, I bought it!” Here is a picture of me before I loced.

The only sad thing about this is that my older girls grew up thinking this was the norm and unfortunately it has been a hard lesson to break. My oldest daughter will not even hear of doing without a weave and I am sad to admit, still wears her hair straight. She is the only one in the house that is not natural . It is difficult for me, because I created the monster. Still, I try to stay optimistic, she is only 16 and it is hard being different than her peers. I am simply trying to be a great example to her and hopefully…..she will see the light.

I don’t think I even have any pictures of my hair when they were baby dreds, the best I can do right now is one of me when they are about 8 months old. The process of leaving them alone was great for my hair, as I started with 3 inches of growth and by the time this picture was taken, my hair was about 4-5 inches. Hassan and I were in Nice, France and I was checking out the delectable pastries when he took this shot!

Now some more recent shots, I promise to get some that are better in quality.

This is a side profile:

And the back…..

I love how my hair has grown, it is now past my shoulders and it is all mine!